A/N:
if you have read this story recently, i extended the scene at the end of the previous chapter. i recommend you read that for some additional context!
if you haven't read this story recently, then you probably need to go reread the entire thing anyways sdjgskgjsdks so feel free to take my words with a grain of salt!
Chapter Eight: Attention-Seeking
The Daily Prophet headline the next day read 'BODY DISCOVERED IN MINISTRY ATRIUM'.
A prominent Ministry official had been discovered dead in the early hours of the morning, with a stack of parchment pinned to his chest. Quite literally pinned there by a slender silver spear.
According to the article, the Ministry was refusing to release a public statement on the contents of the parchments other than to state that the DMLE would be conducting a full investigation regarding the murder. Harry suspected that the parchments documented the official's less-than-legal actions in the Ministry.
Not ten minutes after his paper had been delivered, Harry received an owl.
Do not leave the house. You are being watched.
—Kingsley.
Harry set the note on fire and banished the ashes. It was not the first time he had been kept out of the loop.
Harry called for Kreacher to bring him his own ink and parchment to draft a letter to his friends. He scribbled out a quick request for information and, if the information was too sensitive for a letter, a visit to Grimmauld. Two copies were sent off with Hedwig, one for Ron and one for Hermione.
Hermione, bless her, was first to write back.
I will be there soon. Stay in the house.
Again with the house arrest. Harry was a hermit, but he wasn't a child. However, Hermione would not tell him to stay home without good reason, so he would listen to her.
When Hermione arrived, Harry was pacing the sitting room. He gauged her expression as he greeted her and what he saw did not reassure him.
"So what is it?" he asked as soon as he felt it would not be rude to do so.
"I can't stay long," Hermione said in a rush, and it was true that she had yet to even remove her cloak, "but you have to stay here, Harry. Everything at the Ministry is a mess since they discovered Dawlish's body."
"Dawlish?"
Hermione bit her lip. "They're saying he's a Death Eater."
Harry didn't understand. "Wasn't he let off? For being under influence?"
"He was," Hermione said reluctantly. "But what you have to understand is that the Ministry is in a difficult spot. They can't be seen to have weakness and fear is the most powerful weapon they have right now. By claiming Dawlish was a Death Eater murdered by—"
"By me," Harry finished. It would be unsurprising if the Ministry attempted to discredit him by presenting him as a crazed vigilante.
"By claiming he was murdered for that reason," Hermione continued in a hasty tone, "it sows fear on both sides. Light wizards and dark wizards both."
"What proof have they even got it was me?" Harry demanded.
"The trouble is," Hermione said after a pause, "Dawlish was the Auror tasked with following you the other day."
Harry shook his head. "Right. Of course." Dawlish must have been using Glamours or Polyjuice to disguise his appearance.
"So you must be careful," Hermione said, reaching out to take both his hands in hers. "Ron and I will come by again soon. Please stay here at Grimmauld where it's safe. We don't know who killed Dawlish, but Kingsley has promised to look into it."
"If I head out again, the Ministry will try to follow me," Harry said dully. And if another person died, that would be blood on his hands.
"Yes," Hermione said with a sigh. "I'm sorry, Harry. It's only temporary."
"Sure."
"If there's anything I can do—"
"Yeah. Do you happen to know what it was they found on the body? The Prophet mentioned a stack of papers but not what was in them."
Hermione shook her head. "I'm afraid I don't know. Kingsley didn't say and I'm not sure if it's because he isn't allowed or not. I'll check with him when I next see him."
"Sure," Harry repeated. He tried to smile. "Go. They'll wonder if you're missing for too long."
"Yes." Hermione nodded. "Yes, alright. Take care, Harry." She swept forward and kissed his cheek. "Stay safe."
Once she was gone, Harry collapsed onto the couch and stared up at the ceiling. Being stuck in the house felt worse when it was not of his own choosing.
Kingsley had warned him to watch himself. Had Kingsley known that Harry was being followed by Aurors? If he had, and hadn't said anything… Perhaps Kingsley simply wasn't allowed. But wasn't that the problem? That the Ministry was allowed to do whatever it wanted with no one to stop them. A government without transparency was as good as a dictatorship.
What Harry wanted to do was go about his business outside and see if he could catch whoever was following him. He would get yelled at if he did that, but that did not concern him. What did stop him was a fear that he would make this precarious political situation even worse.
Harry needed to be viewed as someone trustworthy. Dawlish's death would not install public confidence in the Chosen One. People had proven time and time again that when times were uncertain, they were willing to believe whoever told them the most comfortable story.
In the past, the most comfortable story was the one that the Ministry had fed them: everything is fine and Harry Potter is an attention-seeking liar.
More recently, the narrative had changed. Harry was still attention-seeking, but for worse reasons than before. A dark lord in the making. A danger to society. It made him angry. Everything he did seemed meaningless, in the end. Whatever good he accomplished could be wiped away at any given moment by a made-up newspaper article.
The Ministry did not want to change. Without intervention, magical Britain would willingly continue on its path to ruin while no one did anything to stop it.
Over the next few days, more deaths were published in the papers. The most shocking of them was Lucius Malfoy. The details were unclear, but Harry doubted the death had been an accident.
Still, Harry had kept to himself as instructed. He had not left the house since Kingsley and Hermione's warnings. The Ministry had nothing to hold against him.
Ron and Hermione came by as promised to share what little they knew. Someone was targeting Death Eaters and suspected Death Eaters. All of the victims so far were either guilty of being a Death Eater or guilty of another equally-malicious crime. Hermione suspected the perpetrator was an ex-Death Eater with intimate knowledge of the inner circle and connections at the Ministry.
Confident that no one could accuse him of anything, Harry resumed his regular walks and visits to Diagon Alley. His desire to avoid trouble had diminished significantly during his period of house arrest. Harry was, truthfully, itching for a fight. His magic crawled over his skin in sinister, heavy waves. He was sick to death of holding back for the sake of public opinion.
So going about, pretending to mind his own business, was a ruse of sorts. If someone picked a fight with him, then he could fight back and it would be justified. It would prove to everyone that he wasn't making things up when he said that their society needed to change. Just because Voldemort was gone, it did not mean all the problems had vanished.
Unfortunately for Harry, no one came for him, Death Eater or otherwise. But the paranoid feeling of being watched was persistent; Harry remained wary whenever he stepped foot outside of Grimmauld. Sometimes he swore that someone was following him around, hiding in the shadows and the periphery of his vision.
By Thursday evening, Harry had made excellent progress on his research. He had successfully located books that contained information on all the plants that Regulus had listed for the House-Elf ritual, and gone on to document each plant in detail on a separate piece of parchment for his own reference. Once he knew what all the ingredients were for and what they did, maybe he would feel more confident about going through with it.
Harry had not forgotten about his scheduled meeting, either. Tomorrow, he would finally lay eyes on the stranger who had owled him.
The last thing Harry did before bed that night was take out Sirius' old cloak. He planned to wear it tomorrow for his mysterious meeting. It never hurt to have extra protection, and if things did go sideways, Harry would feel better having a little piece of Sirius with him when it happened.
The following morning, Harry woke up feeling oddly invigorated. He was full of energy, ready for whatever the world saw fit to throw at him. He washed quickly and enjoyed a hearty breakfast courtesy of Kreacher before he dressed in robes and cloak for the day.
Sirius' old cloak was a good fit. Harry smoothed the material down and examined himself in the entrance hall mirror, feeling for the first time like a proper adult. A proper wizard. Perhaps after this meeting business was done with, he would see about getting fitted for new robes. He could not live off of his student robes and the outdated wardrobes in this house forever.
The location on the card was an open field near a populated wizarding village in Tutshill. A safe, relatively secure place. Harry was comfortable enough going there on his own, which he supposed was the point.
After checking his pocket watch, Harry decided that twenty minutes was a decent amount of time to be early by considering he still had some walking to do. He pulled on the Invisibility Cloak just in case he was spotted by Muggles when he arrived, and Disapparated.
Harry appeared in an empty alley without any trouble. The hour was early enough that the streets were not crowded, but late enough that his sudden appearance would not seem out of place. Still, he kept the Invisibility Cloak on as he made his way through the village, wandering in the general direction of the sunrise to keep himself correctly oriented. Once he was far enough away, he would consider taking the cloak off.
An unfortunate side-effect of wearing two cloaks at the same time was that Harry began to sweat under the suffocating weight of them. Slogging through the village at a brisk pace to ensure he was on time for his meeting did not help.
When Harry at last arrived at the edge of the field scrawled on his invitation, he was slightly breathless. He took a few moments to catch his breath and steady himself. Someone was already standing out in the field—a tall, lonesome figure backlit by the sunrise.
Harry's heart began to pound, the tell tale rush of adrenaline flooding into him as he stepped forward to greet his host. His holly wand seemed to vibrate in excitement the closer he got, and Harry had the errant thought that his wand was also itching for some action.
Once Harry was a few paces away, the figure turned around. Harry squinted against the bright morning sun and could just make out the features of the person standing before him.
"Tom Riddle," said Harry aloud, matching the face to the Pensieve memories that he had once viewed what now seemed like years ago. He should have been surprised, only he wasn't. There was relief in seeing the familiar enemy that stood across from him. There was comfort in knowing that this was a battle he could win.
The angles of Riddle's handsome profile were less harsh in the golden light of day. Previously, Harry had only ever seen Riddle's youthful face in the depths of Dumbledore's Pensieve. In person, Riddle looked almost angelic—the dark swath of hair that swept elegantly across his forehead, and the sharp, high cheekbones that framed his heated brown eyes.
Harry could see why people had fallen all over themselves to follow Tom Riddle—he could have only grown more attractive as the years had worn on. In fact, Harry had seen the effect a grown Tom Riddle had wrought on Hepzibah Smith, so it wasn't even a stretch of the truth.
Dumbledore had said dark magic ruined the soul, that years of rotting away in the darkness meant that your outsides would eventually reflect your insides. But looking at Riddle, who had murdered his entire Muggle family in cold blood, Harry was finding it hard to believe that any dark magic had ever touched Riddle's face.
There was no trace of Voldemort, of the snake-like features Harry still knew well enough to see regularly in his nightmares. Riddle was different , and that was unexpectedly jarring to Harry, who had ridiculously assumed that there would be some kind of visible warning signs that blared 'dark magic' attached to the boy in front of him. This boy looked alive—and fully, irrevocably human.
As though sensing Harry's thoughts, Riddle licked his lips, lifting his chin ever so slightly upwards, exposing the part of his pale neck that stretched up from his collared shirt.
Harry shed the hood of his Invisibility Cloak and met Riddle's gaze.
"Harry Potter," said Riddle. "We meet… again , I suppose I should say."
"I can't say I'm surprised," said Harry.
Riddle smiled. "I am pleased to hear that, Harry." He tilted his head to the side, as though listening to something. "Did you miss me?"
"Can't say that I have."
"Pity. From what I understand, you and I are quite the adversaries." Riddle took a few steps forward, brushing his robes aside so that he could slip his hands casually into his trouser pockets.
"We were," said Harry.
"The Boy-Who-Lived," said Riddle slowly, drawing the syllables out on his tongue. "The man who defeated Lord Voldemort. The man who, according to the papers, aspires to take Voldemort's place."
"You wouldn't happen to have anything to do with that, would you?" asked Harry. "The stuff in the papers."
Riddle laughed, the sound rich and warm. "You flatter me. No, the wizarding public has turned on you all on its own. Quite ungrateful, aren't they?"
Harry remained silent, thinking, his right hand still holding his wand within his robes.
"So which Horcrux were you?" he asked. "Since I seemed to have missed one and everything."
"I was a relic meant to open the Chamber of Secrets," said Riddle. "A diary with the memory of my sixteen-year-old self preserved in it. I had planned to leave it behind to someday open the Chamber once again. But then I found a better way, you see. A spell to put the Basilisk to bed for half a century. Only, I hadn't been sure if I would be able to accomplish it at the time, not with Dumbledore constantly breathing down my neck whenever I so much as blinked."
"So the Chamber was you," Harry said. "Trying to kill all the Muggleborn students."
"I certainly gave them all a bit of a scare." Riddle smiled again, nastily this time. "But the Ravenclaw girl wasn't missed very much. And eventually I got the Basilisk under control, as was my birthright."
"You're a half-blood," said Harry bluntly.
Riddle's face stiffened. "And so are you."
They looked at each other, then. Two sides of the same coin. Harry thought that Riddle seemed regretful, perhaps, that he had not been born into the blood that he wanted…
"You should be trying to help Muggleborns," Harry said stubbornly. "Not hurt them. You of all people should know what it's like to be born different, to be called a freak."
Riddle did not flinch, but his cheek twitched in such a way that implied it. "I never —"
"The Death Eaters were a lot of inbred morons," Harry continued in a harsh tone. "Look where the Pureblood agenda got you, Riddle. You're dead and the world goes on without you."
"Not like you've been better off, Potter ," spat Riddle, incensed. "You can't tell me you enjoy this either? You've saved them yet they still scorn you, degrade you, expect you to cower. You protected them from me, and now they fear your name," Riddle paced grandly in front of Harry like a panther: graceful, but deadly. He was in his element now, delivering his speech with polished confidence.
"They don't deserve you," continued Riddle, calmly now. "I can give you a place by my side, as an equal. I can help you shield your friends from the injustices of public opinion and the incompetence of the Ministry. The deaths in the papers—"
"Those were you."
"There is no more prophecy," Riddle said smugly. "There is only what we can accomplish. We can rebuild Wizarding Britain in our own image, together . A world free of both Death Eaters and men like Darnall Burke."
"Yes," Harry said. "We could."
There was a beat in which Riddle stared at him, his jaw slackening involuntarily. Harry felt a surge of power inside of him at the sight of Riddle's surprise.
"You're not the only one who wants to change the world, Riddle." Harry gazed back evenly. In his mind, there were pieces slotting together, so quickly that he ought to have been concerned, but he wasn't. He was more sure now than he had been of anything since the war had ended. "You want an equal? You want someone to stand by you and do something real? I can do that, but only if we do it my way."
"Your way?" repeated Riddle, shocked. Then he sneered and seemed to come back to himself. "I suppose I would expect that from you. Dumbledore would have raised you as a blind, Muggle-loving fool. How did it feel to find out that your hero had been Grindelwald's greatest supporter?"
"I don't care about Dumbledore," Harry said calmly. "I'm my own person, and I have my own opinions, thank you very much."
Riddle blinked, taken aback, like the idea he'd originally had of Harry was so far removed from what he was now seeing that he was having difficulty processing the fact that Harry was standing directly in front of him.
"Very well," Riddle said as they simultaneously began to circle each other. Riddle's expression was scrunched up as he continued, "I take it, then, that you want to discuss terms?"
Harry knew this song and dance well. For now, he would continue to let Riddle set the pace of their revolving steps. "Something like that," said Harry. Then he added, "How much have you learned about the world since you came back into it, anyway?"
Riddle glowered, his eyes narrowing. Then he seemed to reconsider, because his tone became charming again as he said, "Enough to know that the great and famous Harry Potter is more clever than he seems."
"You flatter me," Harry said sarcastically. "I've only killed you twice, after all."
Riddle's jaw stiffened momentarily. "For someone who claims to want to join me," Riddle said, his voice still cheerfully light, "you do seem to enjoy antagonizing me."
"Call it the cost of doing business," Harry suggested.
Then Riddle took another step to the left, so Harry mirrored it. It was strange to be facing this incarnation of Voldemort. This Riddle was so young —only a year or so younger than Harry. Despite his grand words and pompous manner, this Riddle was not the same monster of a man that Harry had once stared down at wandpoint.
"You don't need to convince me of anything," Harry added patiently. "I can see that Wizarding Britain isn't going to change unless we make it. I understand that the only way to make that change happen might be by using force. The fact that you're here means the other you—Voldemort—might still be out there somewhere, and he needs to be put down for good."
Harry could not imagine that Riddle had enjoyed being stuck in a diary for over fifty years. If it came down to a choice, Riddle would pick himself over Voldemort.
"I know that you and I together are powerful enough to make it happen," Harry added. "I also know you're a homicidal maniac when you're unchecked, which is why I think we need to set some boundaries. But I don't want to kill you, Riddle. I think you and I have had enough duels for a lifetime."
Riddle's eyes latched onto Harry's for a fraction of a second—barely long enough for Harry to feel the intrusion in his mind—and then he glanced away, dragging his gaze up to the scar on Harry's forehead.
"You mean it," Riddle said, surprised. He looked back down at Harry again. Riddle's expression was now one of genuine curiosity.
"An equal, you said." Harry cleared his throat. "That's what I can do, and that's what my terms are. You treat me as an equal, and we decide on things together. If you no longer want what Voldemort tried to accomplish, then we can be allies."
Riddle had stopped moving at this point. The two of them were only a few paces apart; if Harry was to take two strides forward, he would be close enough to see the exact colour of Riddle's eyes.
"Why me?" Riddle finally asked, still disbelieving, still searching for the trick. "Why now? You never responded to any of Lord Voldemort's overtures before, not that I know of."
"Voldemort never had anything to offer me," Harry said plainly. "He was insane—all he cared about was the extermination of Muggles and casting Crucio on his remaining followers. You've seen the person you became, Riddle. I can tell that's not what you want."
"You think you can tell what I want? What do you know think you about me, Harry James Potter? Son of Lily, son of James. Heir to the Ancient and Most Noble House of Black…" Riddle trailed off, then began pacing anew, his eyes still fixed on Harry.
Harry mimicked Riddle's motion again; they resumed their circling. "I know a lot about you, Riddle," said Harry. "Dumbledore showed me memories—I've seen it all. You meeting Dumbledore at the orphanage, you talking to Slughorn about Horcruxes… I know all your mistakes, Riddle, and I've seen all your follies."
That made Riddle look angry, his handsome features twisted like a gargoyle's.
"Dumbledore was a fool," Riddle said sharply. "A fool who deserved the end he got. My only regret is that I hadn't been the one to do it."
"He sent you back to that orphanage every summer, didn't he?" Harry said softly. "Just like he sent me back to the Dursleys."
Riddle's step faltered; he looked unsure for the first time since their conversation had started. Then his gaze flickered away from Harry again. Harry wondered just what Riddle had seen with his Legilimency. If he knew what the Dursleys had been like.
"It was just before summer, at the end of my third year," said Riddle suddenly, in a flat, lifeless tone. "London had been bombed regularly for eight months straight. So I begged, Harry Potter—for the first and last time in my life, I begged , because I did not want to die."
Harry did not respond. He did not know what to say.
"Did Dumbledore show you that, too? Or was he too much of a coward?" Riddle spat the last word out. "Sitting up in his ivory tower, preaching kindness and equality."
"He didn't," Harry said. "But I think you already know that."
Riddle took a deep breath and seemed to calm down. "He's dead now," said Riddle, as though talking to himself. "So it doesn't matter anymore."
"It doesn't," Harry agreed. "But do we have a deal?"
Riddle eyed him appraisingly. "I suppose we do. Although, of course I will expect some guarantees—I'd say an Unbreakable Vow might do, but then we would require a third party, which I doubt either of us want—I shall have to think on how to arrange it, and then I will contact you."
"I can be found at Number 12, Grimmauld Place," said Harry, making the snap decision. What did it matter, anyway, when Riddle had somehow managed to send him a letter to arrange this very meeting? If he had wanted Harry dead, he'd already had ample opportunity to strike.
Harry was tired of hiding. If Riddle wanted a fight, if he wanted to try some trick, then Harry would simply have to put him down. Surely a teenaged Riddle would be easier to beat in a duel with Harry's newfound magical strength, and if Harry lured him to Grimmauld, it would be safer for everyone else if he failed. The wards of the house would be able to protect Harry as the last Heir of House Black, and if Harry died, Riddle would be trapped inside.
"Then you should expect to hear from me soon," Riddle said promptly, and then he crossed the chasm between them in one long stride, holding out his hand.
Harry gave it a firm shake. The hand was perfectly normal, if a bit cool to the touch.
"See you soon," Harry echoed, and as he watched Riddle step back and Disapparate, he hoped that he was not making a mistake.
A/N:
it's been... a year? since the last update. but clearly this WIP still exists. there are a LOT of you following this story which baffles me, but i do hope you enjoy! this is an extra-long chapter that maybe makes up for the wait.
thank you very much for sticking around and let's hope that it does not take me another year until the next update!